


Run On

by Sholio



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, Headaches & Migraines, Hurt/Comfort, Massage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 18:23:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4490022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Rodney tries to work through the pain. It doesn't always go well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run On

**Author's Note:**

> Frith-in-thorns prompted Rodney with a migraine. And so I delivered. :D

The problem with being a genius, Rodney had occasionally noticed, was that when he fell into a project, other things went by the wayside. Sleeping, say. Or showering. (Yes, thank you for pointing that out, _Radek._ )

He did usually remember to eat, if only because being head-down in the guts of a delicate Ancient device and then suddenly realizing he was lightheaded from hypoglycemia was the sort of experience he tried to minimize. Keeping sugary snacks stashed around the lab was a no-brainer.

But he tended to sink into projects to the point where other considerations got pushed aside. Like, say, a faint, burgeoning headache, until he looked up from the item that might or might not be an improved kind of Ancient teleporter and noticed the lab lights were _way_ too bright and sort of pulsating on one side.

Zelenka, damn him, looked up too. "Are you all right, Rodney?"

"What makes you think I'm not?" Rodney snapped. The right side of his head throbbed in time to his heartbeat. It always snuck up on him, _always._

"You're blinking like a rabbit in headlights."

"Deer, Radek. Deer in headlights."

"It could be a rabbit also," Zelenka pointed out.

In no way was he mentally equipped to have this kind of argument right now. "Since you ask, it's probably a brain tumor, if I'm lucky."

He started pawing through his desk, which prompted Zelenka the Nosy to ask, "Headache?"

"Gee, what tipped you off?"

He didn't get migraines very often. In fact, he'd only had two since he'd been on Atlantis. Both of them, of course, had come up in the middle of crises -- and when _wasn't_ there a crisis -- so he'd gotten Carson to give him drugs and had simply powered through to crash afterwards. This time, at least, he could take something for it and sleep it off.

.... except the usual bottle wasn't in his desk, because of course Dr. Wang, the little migraine-suffering _weasel_ , had stolen it again.

"I have aspirin, if you need one," Zelenka said.

"What I need is ..." The clock in the edge of his (pulsating) screen caught his eye. It was the middle of the night and had been almost eight hours since his last break. Huh. That probably wasn't helping. "... sleep."

"Good. Me too." Zelenka pushed back his desk chair and stretched, then hesitated when he noticed Rodney hanging onto the edge of the desk. "Are you sure you're all right? You haven't been exposed to anything lately, have you?"

"Are you sure you don't have somewhere else to be?"

With a last long look at him, Zelenka put the bottle of aspirin on the edge of his desk and left the lab.

Rodney wished Radek hadn't planted the idea of alien-spore exposure in his head. There hadn't been anything recent, had there? He didn't think so. They hadn't been spending a whole lot of time offworld -- the last time was to M4K-986, a trading planet which had been thoroughly explored around the gate and (probably) did not contain lethal germs or spores. He hadn't ingested anything weird or exposed himself to any strange glowing things lately.

It was probably just a run-of-the-mill migraine.

Probably.

He contemplated going down to the infirmary to get himself checked out, but what decided him was that his quarters were closer (as the transporter transported) and also, not as bright.

And he had a backup bottle of meds stashed there, because hello, _preparedness._

Quarters it was.

The hallway was _much_ too bright: the nausea was kicking in big-time by now, and the side of his head seemed to expand and contract with each beat of his heart. The map in the transporter was so bright he couldn't even look at it, so he stabbed the general vicinity of where he was pretty sure his quarters were --

\-- and emerged on the west pier.

"Okay, you have got to be kidding me."

He tried again, and this time got a waiting area at the top of a tower in -- a glance out the window confirmed -- the southeast quadrant of the city.

Maybe there was still an Ascended Ancient living in the city's computer, and she hated him.

However, this area at least had the advantage of being a) dim, and b) generously endowed with couches. Which looked very inviting. He just wanted to get horizontal and hide from the world for awhile. Sometimes when he slept, the headache went away on its own.

Maybe it was worth a try. He could readily imagine himself bouncing all over the damn city before he managed to pick the right location. It would have been funny if he weren't so miserable.

Zelenka's bottle of aspirin would have been really useful right about now, except, he realized grudgingly as he patted himself down, he'd left it in the lab. There was a muffled, fuzzy edge on his brain. This was the thing he hated most about migraines: they made it hard to _think._

He flopped facedown on one of the armless couches. Marginally better than standing up. Less nauseating, anyway.

His radio clicked. "Rodney?" Teyla's voice said.

Oh, God, why hadn't he turned the damn thing off.

"Not here," he mumbled into the couch.

"Are you all right?:

He rolled onto his side, so he could at least talk without getting a mouthful of whatever the Ancient equivalent of Naugahyde was. "The city had better be about to blow up."

"No," Teyla said dryly, "not to my knowledge. I wanted to be certain you were all right."

"Have you been talking to Zelenka lately?"

"I happened to encounter Radek in the hallway," Teyla said, and Rodney closed his eyes with a groan. "He said you seemed unwell, and wished me to find out if you made it to your quarters safely."

"I'm --" He started to say 'fine', then realized, actually, she _could_ do something for him, and it would save him a trip. "Are you near the infirmary, by any chance?"

"Why?" she asked, her voice sharpening. "Are you _in_ the infirmary?"

"No, no. I wanted to ..."

To ask. A favor. His tongue stumbled over the words. He still wasn't used to being _able_ to ask. Wasn't used to being around people who were willing to do favors for him if he did ask.

"Yes?" Teyla said. She was still listening. "Can I get you something, Rodney?"

"Imitrex," he said. It felt like an admission of failure. "From the infirmary. And bring it to, uh ..." This would involve figuring out where he was. "Me," he said. "Query the computer about my exact location."

"Don't you know where you are?" Her voice had a sharp edge again.

"Yes," he said. "No. Sort of. I don't think I can explain." Thinking, right now, felt like slogging through syrup in hip waders. "Look, just get it. Please?" He didn't mean it to come out sounding quite so pathetic, but he was feeling pretty awful by now.

"I will get it," Teyla promised. "I will be there soon. Imitrex?"

"Yeah. Whoever's on duty will know what it is. I know we keep it in stock."

After that, there was blessed radio silence, and then, after a long hazy indeterminate time, a quiet chime from the transporter. Teyla's voice, not through the radio this time, said softly, "Rodney?"

"Over here," he mumbled, waving an arm feebly.

He cracked open an eye to find Teyla sitting down on the couch across from him. She held out a small bottle and -- because she was Teyla -- a plastic cup of water as well. "Dr. Fyodorova said you should take two of these, and report to her if it does not ease your symptoms."

"Thanks." He managed to get just vertical enough to swallow the pills without spilling the water all over himself, and then went flat again. Hopefully if he stayed flat, and kept his eyes shut, they'd stay down.

"She did not seem terribly concerned," Teyla said. Her hands brushed his, taking the cup and bottle from his lax grip. He hadn't even noticed he was still holding them.

"It's not that serious." _Unless it's a brain tumor. Or a parasite. Or I'm Ascending again._ Damn it, he was going to _kill_ Zelenka.

"Are you certain? You look ..." There was a brief, tactful pause. "Unwell."

"Then I look about like I feel. But," he added, "as much as I'd _like_ to complain, trust me, it's just a migraine. I'll live. Unfortunately."

"I am not sure what that is," Teyla said cautiously.

Gate translation error? "Uh, a headache?" he tried. "A really bad headache, with nausea."

"This is something that happens for no other cause?"

"Some people just get them," Rodney said. "I've had them since I was a kid." Which brought back a sudden, sharp memory of his mother's voice cutting like a buzz saw through his skull: _It's pure hypochondria, you only do it to get attention ..._ "Don't you?" he asked, to drown out the voice from the past. "Your people, I mean."

"I am not sure," Teyla said. "I have not heard of it. But our medical science is not quite as advanced as yours."

Huh. No migraines? Environmental causes, maybe? Or something they ate? Carson and Jennifer would probably be interested; this sounded like something the squishy sciences would be all over. He'd have to remember to tell somebody, at some point when his brain wasn't trying to rip its way out of his skull.

"Well, it's a thing," he said. "That happens. To us."

"And this drug will help?"

"Kinda. Eventually. It doesn't work for everyone, or for me all the time, but if I can catch it early enough, it heads it off better than anything else does." Early. The thought percolated through his fuzzy brain that it was something like three in the morning. Why, exactly, had she been wandering the halls to run into Zelenka in the first place? He cracked open an eye again. "Why are _you_ up, anyway?"

"Because Torren is teething." Teyla sank deeper into the couch with a small sigh. "I hope you do not mind if I stay here for a while."

"Sure. It's not my couch. Whoever's couch it was is probably dead now." Okay, that was morbid. "Sorry. Not thinking very well right now. I hate that," he added bitterly.

"It seems most unpleasant."

"Mmmm," he told the couch.

There was silence then, except for some very small rustling noises as Teyla rearranged herself. Teyla was better at being silent than anyone he'd ever met. Then something brushed his hair, and he jerked out of a semi-doze.

"I apologize," Teyla said. "I had not realized you were asleep."

"I wasn't really." Drifting in a kind of stupor was more accurate. Now he was in a slightly more alert stupor. "What were you doing? Brushing a spider off my head?"

"No, I ..." Uncharacteristically, she hesitated. "We might not have quite the same thing as your problem, but we _do_ have headaches, and sometimes rubbing a person's scalp helps with them. I was going to offer to do that for you, if you like."

Well, it couldn't really make things worse. Okay, no, it _could_ make things worse, but realistically, he didn't think it was likely to. Besides, he felt too wiped out to argue with her. "Sure, go ahead."

Nothing happened for a moment. Then Teyla's small, strong hands settled on his head. He was expecting a light and delicate motion, but instead, she pressed firmly and insistently, rubbing her fingertips in smooth semicircles over his scalp with occasional pauses on what he supposed were pressure points.

... which was all absurd, pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo, but the weird thing was, it actually _did_ seem to be helping. At least it was taking the edge off, about as well as aspirin and caffeine normally did. Slowly, he relaxed into it.

"Rodney?" Teyla asked quietly. "Shall I continue?"

He made an incoherent noise.

"I will take that as a yes."

Her fingers continued to swipe smoothly across his scalp, and he eased deeper into something more like true sleep.

_You may as well stop playing sick, because no one cares,_ said the voice from the past.

But it was long ago and far away, and maybe there _was_ a small vestige of Athosian healing magic in Teyla's hands, because eventually the voice went away, and he slept.


End file.
